Posted on April 19, 2016 by Jenny Cromack

 

When it comes to planning their training many people divide their body up into parts and train one muscle group at a time. But concentrating your workout around compound, multi-joint exercises will help target multiple goals at once such as improved performance, strength and a healthier, leaner body.

So here is a blog to give you some more information about the difference between isolation and compound training, and the benefits of compound training.

Compound exercises are also known as multi joint exercises (because they use more than one joint at a time). For example when you squat you use muscles around the hip (lower back, abs and glutes), knee (quads, hamstrings) and the ankle.

Isolation exercises are those that only use one joint at a time. such as the bicep curls (elbow joint) or knee extensions (knee joint).

For the best results in your workout multi-joint lifts should make up the majority of your workout. Plan workouts around squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls and leave the small muscle group exercises to round up your training.

Here are the 3 main benefits of compound training:

1) Greater carry over to sport and daily Llife

Compound exercises have a high transfer effect both for sport and daily life activities. Compound exercises require a much more complex neurological organisation.
2) You Burn More Calories

The bottom line is the more muscle you train at once, the greater the energy cost for the body and therefore more calories burned!

3) Save Time

Multi- joint exercises raise the potential for producing a more time- efficient training session. One large muscle mass exercise, such as a deadliest or power clean, can exercise as many groups as four to eight small muscle group isolation lifts.